And if this weekend wasn’t wonderful enough all on it’s own, for me it was EXTRA special because, well, LA Vegan Beer Fest is where I met Jeremy for the first time, last year. ♥ ♥ ♥

And now, one whole wild year later, this is how we spent our anniversary weekend:




Saturday morning meant a road trip to LA. We always make a giant fresh-pressed juice before a weekend away, to clean out the crisper and use up all the veggies. This one, pre-beer fest, centered around beets. Because liver.

A gorgeous drive down the California coast, a quick pit stop for a couple iced coffees to fuel the fun, and we were ready to take on the 5th annual LA Vegan Beer & Food Festival!




Gosh, how to even describe Vegan Beer Fest?

It’s like, one day of pure unabashed and unadulterated awesome. Vegans – the happiest vegans! – everywhere, all around. So many friendly and familiar (and even famous) faces. Good music – live and turned up loud. PERFECT WEATHER. Incredible food, soooo much food, from raw kale salad, to gourmet Mexican, to mac ‘n cheese + ribz turned into a grilled cheese sandwich. And of course, beer. All the beer.

I think my friend Brian, AKA The Sexy Vegan, said it best on his Instagram:

I can’t say enough about the Los Angeles Vegan Beer Fest. It is seriously the best day of the year (if it’s a year in which I didn’t get married or have a kid).

And I might just have to agree!

And that’s one of my favorite things about the vegan community in general – the accessibility and the inclusiveness. For the most part we are all just so incredibly stoked to be involved in something so meaningful. And there’s very little social hierarchy that I experience, so that you can go to an event like this, and hey! that person is totally on TV but they’re just chumming it up with everyone else. And ohmigosh! That’s so-and-so from my favorite podcast, or whatsherface from that seminar I saw, or that wicked sharp writer who just released a top-selling book. Or, maybe it’s someone you don’t recognize at all – someone who just looks super freakin’ cool. And you can just walk up and say hi, no matter who they are, because they’re probably approachable, and they probably just want to geek out over the food, and chat about activism.

I love that about our community.

I had no idea that I was describing the man I’d meet only hours later, who turned out to be all those things and so much more. Jeremy and I bumped into each other around 3:30, at that very spot at Beer Fest, and we were stuck like glue until after midnight. And we’ve continued to stick, ever since. He is everything I never thought existed, and who could have imagined that one year later we would be here, living this beautiful life together?

Beer Fest wraps up early, around 5:30-6. And after saying a million goodbyes, Jeremy and I decided to retrace our steps from our first night together, a year ago. Which meant: dinner at Bulan down on Melrose Ave!

But of course, this year, instead of escorting Kate and I safely to our hotel, Jeremy took my hand and walked me back to the little room we’d rented, right in the heart of Hollywood. Together.

It was a really, really great day.

On Sunday we enjoyed a lazy morning lounging around. We knew we wanted to hit World Fest – an annual LA event that bills itself as basically “vegan Earth Day” – but we weren’t necessarily in any rush. So, we decided to take a bit of a stroll, to the Hollywood Farmer’s Market.




Holy moly, I had no idea the Hollywood FarMar was so amazing! There was tons of produce, but also prepared foods (for like, blocks!) and clothing and wares, and flowers, and coffee and juice, and music . . . it was more like a bazaar than a FarMar. It was great! And while we were there, we finally got to sample Nary Dairy vegan cheese (good but very similar to the cashew cheeses I make at home) and No Moo “wise cream” (which was delish!). We also grabbed breakfast:

Lunch:

Again, gosh, a really, really great day.

But I seem to have had a lot of those, this past year …

♥

So there’s this meme that’s popular in the lifestyle blogging world, and I’ve always wanted to try it. As a compulsive documentarian, I’ve attempted to record my life in many iterations of photo-essay, from the small (ie, What I Ate Wednesdays) to the grand (like a good ol’ 365 project) and pretty much everything in between. And this meme – A Photo An Hour – seems like a logical next step.

I can’t decide if I’ll do it again (you tell me?), but I’m glad I finally tried it. It’s an interesting way to both a) move through your day (What will I be doing in an hour from now? 2 hours? What will it look like?) as well as b) reflect back on your day (Wow, I sure did a lot of *that*. Or maybe – I didn’t do much of anything. Or maybe – this doesn’t show what I really did!)

This is what my day looked like this past Saturday, broken down by hourly intervals. Waits was with Damian all day.



8:00 am
Bunny hair and sleepy eyes. Sigh, I guess it’s time to get up and start this day.



8:30 am
Starting the day, take 2. A wiggly wake-up call. Okay okay FINE! Now we’re getting up.



9:30 am
Breakfast for two. Pudla with sautéed onion and zucchini, plus kalamata olives, topped with a sprinkle of vegan cheese and some heirloom tomato. Served with salsa and of course, a steaming vat of black tea + stevia + almond milk.



10:30 am
A canine date on the floor with this guy, and this book. My life has recently veered sharply off its expected course, onto a different road entirely, actually. Sometimes change is slow-growth, like a giant Sequoia redwood tree. But other times, it picks you up, spins you around, and launches you towards your future like a gosh darn shot-put.

I’m currently experiencing the latter.



11:30 am
A non-canine date with my beau, a study break down at the Farmer’s market. Wandering hand-in-hand, taking in all the inspiration (and plotting our dinner).



12:30 pm
Back home. More of this.



1:30 pm
Another pause in the studying. Will break for plant blood. I made us juice with beets + their greens, cucumber, parsley, ginger, and apples. A pint apiece.



2:30 pm
More of the same.

The problem with shot-put style change is that it doesn’t leave much time for planning. I had all of 9 days – count them NINE LITTLE DAYS – to completely prepare for the GRE. I think this is what they call “cramming”.



3:30 pm
A snack. Still studying, but simultaneously snacking on chips with black beans, guac, and salsa.



4:30 pm
We ran some errands on our bikes. A trip to the hardware store, plus picking up a few things for dinner. Afternoon bike rides are pretty fantastic.



5:30 pm
OH PLEASE MAKE IT STOP.



6:30 pm
Done! I come into the kitchen; he’s already prepping dinner. These shiitakes are ready for roasting.

One of our very, verymost favorite things to do together is cook. Long, slow, lazy meals made without recipes, with our own imaginations, created and recreated along the way. This intimate culinary collaboration has truly become one of my happiest places on earth.



7:30 pm
Roasted cauliflower coming out, homemade mushroom lentil loaf going in . . .



8:30 pm
Dinner outside. Mushroom lentil loaf with barbecue sauce and vegan Jack, Farmer’s Market asparagus, and mashed FarMar cauliflower with roasted garlic and truffle salt. Do I even need to mention that this meal was absolutely divine? Well for the record, it was.



9:30 pm
Burning sage. Because we were sort of performing a little ceremony. Oh god, yes you can totally tease us for being such ridiculous hippies.


The rest of the night was basically boring, sort of puttering-cleaning-mundane sort of stuff, and I mostly let the camera rest. There was a good session of this before bed though:


And I totally won!

♥


PS – I took these photos on Saturday but I’m posting them on Wednesday, and I’m taking the GRE on Thursday which means . . . please with me luck!

This weekend was spectacular! Overflowing with fun and I just had to share it, although I must warn you, there were long periods of time where I was having so much fun that I completely forgot to take pictures. Oh well, I always say that if capturing the moment interferes with living the moment, well that’s just not worth it. I hope you can forgive me! As it is, this is going to be a ridiculously picture-heavy post.

So alright, here we go!



Friday
On Friday afternoon, Waits woke up from his nap pretty late, which meant we were in a bit of a hurry. So I fixed him some strawberries sprinkled with hemp seeds (one of his very favorite treats) and got us all dressed and packed and gathered and ready to go.

We had a very important birthday party to attend, you see. Amber is one of my dearest friends – we did our research together back in college – and her baby boy was turning one. Amber lives in LA, which doesn’t seem so far, but with busy lives it’s just long enough to mean we rarely get the chance to get together. Boo!

I didn’t take a single picture. Bad blogger!


Saturday
I was so excited for Saturday! I’d been excited for months, in fact, and the day had finally arrived. May 4th – the LA Vegan Beer & Food Festival!

I started the day off right, with a nice big high-protein power breakfast. I’ve been experimenting with making my pudla batter a little bit thinner, and then folding it over like a mock omelet. Which is pretty epic. This one had fresh spinach and sun-dried tomatoes mixed into the batter, and was stuffed with vegan cream cheese, vegan cheese, avocados, and hot sauce. Topped with fenugreek sprouts. IT WAS AMAZING.

After breakfast my friend and adventure-partner Kate came over, we mapped directions, and then hit the road. First stop was the hotel:

So Waits is verging on dropping his afternoon nap. Basically, when he takes the nap he stays up till 10:00 . . . 10:30 . . . or, like, 11:45 the other night? And um, NO. But when he skips the nap, it can be tough psychologically/emotionally. Still, it seems like it’s time.

So, we left the party and went on a little adventure, exploring downtown SB. We got coffee, and window shopped, and listened to a great street musician. It was lovely.


In the evening we met up with our friends at their place, for dinner and a soak in the hot tub (not in that order). I think a soak is pretty much the best way to cap off an incredible weekend, no?




Especially when said soak is followed by vegan quesadillas?



It was a long fun day and after dinner, Waits was DONE. He fell asleep on the ride home, well before sun down. Please let him not wake up at 5 am tomorrow . . .

And me? My Sunday night?

Well I’m here of course, photo-editing and writing this post, exhausted and totally blissed at the end of a killer weekend. See?


Peace!

I hope you had a great one too! What did you do?

♥

So needless to say, I was more than happy to say hello to Friday afternoon – the beginning of a damn good weekend. And we kicked it off right, when Waits woke up from his nap around 4. The first thing we did was make some juice!


This is Waits’s new favorite blend. Actually, since turning three he’s become increasingly picky with his vegetable intake, and this is one of the only juices he’ll drink right now. Luckily it’s packed full of goodness!


Cilantro and lime from up at the preschool, a bit of kale from my CSA, and tangerines off our tree. SO. GOOD.

We spent a lovely afternoon together, just the two of us, puttering about in the back yard. We planted a flower bed.

So for the past few months, I’ve been putting together a vegetable plot. Or actually, a few vegetable plots. One is in full swing (kale, butter lettuce, swiss chard, cilantro, and broccoli) and another I’ve just seeded out (carrots, walla wallas, cantaloupe, and watermelon). And that’s just the beginning! There is so much space on that terraced hillside. BIG plans.

It’s funny though, when you’ve known someone as long and as intimately as we’ve known each other. They saw me through my entire tumultuous twenties, saw me at my very worst – as I saw them at theirs. We watched each other make big mistakes. Laughed and cried and loved and hurt. Put each other on pedestals and gasped as we all tumbled down. Went through years-long periods of not even speaking, and at the end of all that . . . a porch, and a cup of coffee, and my heart is so very full for them. Life is funny and I am lucky. And that’s just that.

What about you – did you have a good one? I hope so!

♥

We met up at her place that evening, after our boys had napped.

You know, I’ve never in my life gone out for St Paddy’s Day. Not once! But this year – well this is my year of musical revolution. And this is my year of grabbing life by the balls, if you’ll pardon such a ribald phrase. So color me Irish.

I started the day, however, with a hearty breakfast and a few more hours of work.

♥